Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World

Topspin said:
your pipe dream is admirable, but nothing more than fantasy at this point.
Click to expand...
"At this point" it is a realizable goal which will take some concentrated effort to achieve. Like I said (with the exception of the biomass to gasoline idea) there is nothing in the idea of expanding biofuels that will take a breakthrough to make happen.

Of course, the oil companies and those who make their money off of them will fight it all the way. But it will ultimately be a losing battle. The only long term recourse big oil has is to keep oil products enough lower in cost to discourage the free market development of biofuels. (Subsidized biofuels will NEVER make it happen.) But it looks to me like the national market is going to soon force big oil into a situation they'd prefer to avoid: oil prices so high that alternatives become competitive without the need for subsidies.

But tell me, are you so negative about the future of oil alternatives because you are a pessimist, or is it because you would prefer it not to happen?
 
uscitizen said:
Umm topspin is an employee of big oil. Managment type I am led to believe.
Click to expand...
Well, maybe Topspin needs to hint to his higher ups that the big oil company that jumps into alternates will be the long term winner over those big oil companies that cling to the status quo.

10 years ago the idea of pushing for biofuels to get the U.S. of oil imports WAS a pipe dream because the price differential was too wide. It was something for the distant future because, at the time, it would take another 30 years before prices started to close on the costs of alternates. But the oil economy has managed to do in 7 years what was thought would take 30. So the time to start switching over and get off imports while developing an energy export potential has been pushed forward to now.
 
this is funny shit,
seriously I'm glad folks finally show concern.
Luck, actually looking at numbers and facts might help.
What you ignoratly brush off as clinging to the status quo will be the same situation 10yrs from now if we are lucky.
No great strides have been made in biofuels especially where it comes to commercializing switchgrass.
Our company does have a biodiesel plant in Texas, and we have a 50% interest in the company that invented the hybrid batter. So we and most are branching out and actually making it happen.:clink:
 
Topspin said:
this is funny shit,
seriously I'm glad folks finally show concern.
Luck, actually looking at numbers and facts might help.
What you ignoratly brush off as clinging to the status quo will be the same situation 10yrs from now if we are lucky.
No great strides have been made in biofuels especially where it comes to commercializing switchgrass.
Our company does have a biodiesel plant in Texas, and we have a 50% interest in the company that invented the hybrid batter. So we and most are branching out and actually making it happen.:clink:
Click to expand...


OR... getting enough ownership leverage to pull the plug if it actually works.
 
Good Luck said:
This is going to be one of those things that starts so slowly it is barely noticeable, then take off in exponential growth. Oil prices doubling in 7 years isn't going to exactly slow things down. The higher the price of gasoline, the more push there will be to reduce use of gasoline. The higher the price of oil, the more competitive alternates will be.

The more competitive alternate become, the more people will invest in the technology to make alternate viable - such as using cellulose. Cellulose is a far greater resource than you give credit for. over 150 million tons of cellulose waste is added to landfills every year. Imagine turning a significant percentage of that into alternate fuels. Food production yields a vast amount of cellulose after the edible portions are removed. And cellulose sources will grow where food will not. All in all, it is VERY possible, without needing a breakthrough in theory, to produce enough biomass to make alternate fuels enough to become an energy exporting nation. (Of course, being an energy exporter would include the idea that the U.S. will continue to produce coal and oil.)

The article posted by Damocles shows another area that technology is catching up. The production of gasoline-like hydrocarbon chains using waste organics could blow things wide open. Think of this: what we throw into land fills in a year could produce almost a third the gasoline we use if this technique can be put into mass production. We can most certainly produce way more than twice that in deliberate agriculture of cellulose biomass.

It will still take a long time, but I will not be surprised at all to see us at the very least become energy self sufficient before I ride into the sunset. Could happen even sooner if we'd quit wasting time on methods we know to be a dead end.
Click to expand...


Well said. I regret that we've had to reach this point of perceived near desperation before serious efforts to develop alternative energy sources were undertaken, but sadly a lack of foresight seems to be indigenous to much of our species. Hopefully advances in the required technology will follow the paths of those in some other areas.

One factor in the timeline to technological development would be the growth rates of crops. Cellulosic crops such as switchgrass, which you so wisely pointed out, will grow where other crops such as corn and other foods will not, and hopefully two or more crops per season may be feasible, depending on growth rate and climatic conditions.

Another technological imperative will be more efficient means of using whatever energy we do produce. Painful for some, perhaps many, will be the need to change our attitudes toward energy consumption and to become more conservation conscious and responsible for what we use and waste.
 
Thorn said:
Well said. I regret that we've had to reach this point of perceived near desperation before serious efforts to develop alternative energy sources were undertaken, but sadly a lack of foresight seems to be indigenous to much of our species. Hopefully advances in the required technology will follow the paths of those in some other areas.

One factor in the timeline to technological development would be the growth rates of crops. Cellulosic crops such as switchgrass, which you so wisely pointed out, will grow where other crops such as corn and other foods will not, and hopefully two or more crops per season may be feasible, depending on growth rate and climatic conditions.

Another technological imperative will be more efficient means of using whatever energy we do produce. Painful for some, perhaps many, will be the need to change our attitudes toward energy consumption and to become more conservation conscious and responsible for what we use and waste.
Click to expand...
The atmosphere of desperation is the result of oil prices doubling in 7 years instead of taking the usual 30. Had we taken 30 years to reach current gasoline prices, the push toward alternate fuels would still be starting because the costs are getting to be equitable, but the atmosphere of desperation would not be as prevalent.

But desperation is playing a negative role now, in that we are clinging to traditional sources for ethanol as an "quick fix". The technology is well developed for fermentation of sugars to get ethanol. (Did it myself one time...) But if we focus too much, the idea of ethanol as an alternate energy source will be declared a failure because of the lack of ability to produce enough corn, and what the use of more and more corn will do to food availability and prices. And with that failure, ALL ethanol sources will be looked on as failures. In that, it is indeed too bad we had to get desperate, because that desperation is leading us down the wrong path to energy independence.

We need to be writing our congress critters, national and state, and governors, and suggesting they move alternate energy subsidies to a more viable long term solution than corn.
 
good luck with that on corn.
you have two huge obsticles, Iowa and the sugar subsidies that make it way more expensive here than in Brazil.
 
Topspin said:
good luck with that on corn.
you have two huge obsticles, Iowa and the sugar subsidies that make it way more expensive here than in Brazil.
Click to expand...
It is "not as expensive" in Brazil because of heavy government subsidies. But at least they had the brain power to choose a more viable fuels crop than corn.

There are more states that do not grow corn in significant quantities than those who do. Most states that can not economically grow corn have the capability to grow switch grass or other alternative fuels biomass. As such it will not be impossible, or even all that difficult, to get subsidies for biofuels moved to those fuel craps that can be grown in a majority of states. When push comes to shove, the congress critters will be pushing for that which brings energy subsidies money into their states, and Iowa (and other corn states) will find themselves in a minority.

I would just as soon minimize crop subsidies as they never seem to end once set up, and are ultimately a poor way to spend our taxes. But since getting rid of subsidies will never happen, we may as well point those tax dollars in a direction that will actually help rather than hinder the process of becoming energy independent.
 
I'm sure switchgrass if ever demostrated to be efficient on a widescale it'll get it's share. That's a long way off.
 
Topspin said:
I'm sure switchgrass if ever demostrated to be efficient on a widescale it'll get it's share. That's a long way off.
Click to expand...
Not as long as you are hoping.

But I'll agree it isn't going to happen next year. It may even take 5 or so. But a wise person would not bet on it taking more than 10 to get things rolling. And if oil prices insist on same rate of price increases we've seen over the last decade, motivations could well make cellulosic ethanol a viable alternative much sooner.

The only significant obstacle to widespread cellulosic ethanol production is cost. And big oil, with their short-sighted policies coupled with an unstable world market, may very well take care of that problem without any improvement in cellulosic production. Add a little research into making cellulosic ethanol production more efficient and less expensive will only hasten that which you do not desire. (though you should.)

And try to remember that cellulosic ethanol production is not solely dependent on cellulose crops like switch grass. It can also make use of the vast quantities of cellulose (and other organic) waste we generate daily.

"Fuel from your garbage!" Doesn't that make a good slogan?
 
Topspin said:
Fortunes will be made and lost in the 5yrs before the commercial testing is started.
Click to expand...
So? Fortunes will be made in the next 5 years whether alternate energy sources were an issue or not. The sun will rise and set 1826 times in the next 5 years. My grandson will probably pick his nose at least that many times in the next 5 years. If I am fortunate I will have about that many bowel movements in the next 5 years.

Of course, we won't mention that if gasoline prices rise much more than an additional 10-15%, commercial PRODUCTION of cellulosic ethanol plants will take place a lot sooner than 5 years. The technology is there and most testing is complete, as the plant in Canada has shown. We can experiment with methods to make production less expensive, but the ability to do the job has already been demonstrated.

What will take time is making the technology wide spread. The main barrier to that event is competitive pricing, and the oil industry is taking care of that barrier for us.
 
luck, you live in fantasy land. hope it makes you feel good.
Testing does not make a commercial business.
Will you stake your live savings investing in a retail outlet selling exclusivley ethonal?
 
Topspin said:
luck, you live in fantasy land. hope it makes you feel good.
Testing does not make a commercial business.
Will you stake your live savings investing in a retail outlet selling exclusivley ethonal?
Click to expand...
Point to the place where I stated we should push for an energy economy exclusively based on ethanol, and I will send my retirement savings to the plant in Canada. But you cannot, can you? I even specified that a U.S. that is energy independent would need continue to exploit domestic fossil fuels. I do believe what you are now engaging in is called a "strawman" argument.

The goal I believe the U.S. should be pursuing is energy independence at the least, preferably to become an energy exporter. It is oil imports I desire to replace, not oil itself. The so-called "green" value of ethanol and other bio-fuels is nice, but not a paramount issue in my book. Energy independence is far more important. (I just do not buy into the whole "global warming is the fault of humans" crap.)

Second, testing may not make a commercial business, but the fact that a commercial business is producing cellulosic ethanol at an industrial rate indicates that testing is, for practical purposes, finished. Others are pursuing methods which would be economically competitive without the need for heavy subsidies, but the actual ability to produce at an industrial level has been tested and proven. I state again (which you seem to totally ignore), the only real barrier now is price. As long as oil prices keep rising, quite soon - sooner than you think - the production cost of cellulosic ethanol won't be an issue.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top